Three images from The Hours of James IV of Scotland, Prayer book of James IV and Queen Margaret. Produced in 1503 or later, probably in Ghent. It marks a highpoint of the late 15th century Ghent-Bruges school of illumination and is now in the Austrian National Library in Vienna (Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Codex Vindobonensis 1897). It is thought to have been a wedding gift from James IV of Scotland or another Scottish nobleman to Jamess wife Margaret Tudor on the occasion of their marriage, perhaps finishing a book already started for another purpose. A number of artists worked on the extensive programme of decoration, so that the manuscript in its entirety presents a rather odd picture of heterogeneity. The best known miniature, a full-page portrait of James at prayer before an altar with an altarpiece of Christ and an altar frontal with Jamess coat-of-arms, gave his name to the Master of James IV of Scotland, who is now generally identified as Gerard Horenbout, court painter to Margaret of Austria; he did only one other miniature in the book. Drawings had evidently been sent to Flanders of James portrait and the heraldry of the couple, but perhaps not of Margaret. Probably drawings were sent of the panel portraits in Edinburgh of James III of Scotland and his queen Margaret of Denmark by Hugo van der Goes, since the portrait miniatures show similar iconography. After she was widowed Margaret gave the book to her sister Mary Tudor, Queen of France, inscribing it (on f. 188): Madame I pray your grace / Remember on me when ye / loke upon this bok / Your lofing syster / Margaret. By the time of Leopold I, Holy Roman Emperor in the late 17th century it had entered the library of the Austrian Habsburgs in Vienna.
Posted on: Sun, 21 Sep 2014 07:55:03 +0000
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